


Daughter of the Forest

by ofsevenseas



Category: Beauty and the Beast - All Media Types, Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms, Ludwig Kakumei, Rotkäppchen | Little Red Riding Hood (Fairy Tale), Six Swans (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Experimental, F/F, Femslash, Mild Gore, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-15
Updated: 2012-12-15
Packaged: 2017-11-21 05:27:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/593959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofsevenseas/pseuds/ofsevenseas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is an orphan, a girl child alone in the world, a monster, a bitch, a shadow in the trees, a rumour for parents to whisper to their children, a nightmare in a red hood, an inevitability hurtling towards her destiny.</p><p>This is Lisette, and she is not afraid of wolves.</p><p>(Underage warning for ambiguous age - the passage of time is unclear, but she's meant to be about 15 - and ambiguous sex.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daughter of the Forest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rekall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rekall/gifts).



> Dear recipient, I hope you like this! I'm really sorry about all the blood and gore, plus the deaths, but you wanted a Kaori Yuki story, so this sort of came out. 
> 
> Lisette is my favourite, and I hope I did her justice here.
> 
> -
> 
> Thanks are due to the betafish, who audienced this fic and did not immediately have me committed, eternally grateful, yours, etc.

Here. Listen. 

I’ll tell you a story.

-

This is Lisette. Lisette is running through the woods, blood in her hair, blood under her nails, blood flowing from her collarbone to her navel and down to her legs, blood spattering from her feet onto the packed dirt of the forest path, blood gleaming dully on her axe, blood congealing in her eyelashes, mingling with her every breath.

This is Lisette, and she will be eleven this year. 

She is an orphan, a girl child alone in the world, a monster, a bitch, a shadow in the trees, a rumour for parents to whisper to their children, a nightmare in a red hood, an inevitability hurtling towards her destiny.

She runs.

\- 

There is a wolf in the woods. That is the way of things, naturally, that the wolves have as much right to the forest as humans. Everyone understands, and on nights when the shadows are longer and the stars dimmer, the people lock their doors and glance fearfully at the bright moon overhead. 

Lisette runs under the wolf moon.

At the crossroads the moon dims and the branches grow impossibly thick, but Lisette is small, and slips through where adults would have feared to tread. There is no wolf demon here. This is an enchanted forest, after all, and it does not tolerate infringement. By convention there are paths, and the brambles open themselves up for hapless travelers. (Like they did for Lisette’s father, but that is a story for another time, and besides, the man is dead.)

There is a cottage at the end of the path, and a light is on. Lisette hefts her axe over her shoulder, and opens the door. 

A little while later, the wolf lays down on the doorstep, ears cocked for the sounds of washing from inside, and goes to sleep.

\- 

This is Lisette, and she dreams of wolves. 

Hush. Listen.

She runs in her sleep.

\- 

She finds guns under the bed, and goes hunting. The land is fertile, and she gorges herself on the steaming meat, violence a hunger deep inside her. She survives.

Remember, Lisette is the daughter of a woodsman.

\- 

The cottage is not a cottage, and the woods are not really woods. Because Lisette is here, they are here, and after she is gone, they will become whispers and magic, a holdover from a kingdom destroyed in Amalberga’s father’s time. 

They wait. One day their queen will avenge them.

\- 

The wolf comes back every night.

-

Lisette becomes bolder, tracks a boar through the woods, eager to bring him down. She forgets about the tusks, and the wolf jumps out, tears its throat to bloody ribbons. The wolf cocks its head at Lisette, tongue lolling in an open laugh, and trots away.

Hours later, Lisette drags the carcass into the small castle that sits where her cottage used to be, gun strapped to her back. She is bleeding freely from the leg where the boar had caught her. She is not going to run.

The wolf waits. It lies in the throne room, lazy and basking in the sunlight shining through high windows. 

Lisette throws a leg of boar through the open doorway, watches it smack onto the ground near the wolf. It lands with a meaty slapping sound, while Lisette approaches, axe in hand. 

This is Lisette, and she is not afraid of wolves.

-

“I killed my parents, you know.” The wolf blinks at her, then yawns, mouthful of sharp canines on display.

Lisette ties three layers of cloth around her injured leg. She walks out again, without a single look back at the wolf. 

“Let me know when you’re done playing games.”

-

Selene gets up, walks on two legs to the kitchen, eyes open and smile dreamy, skin tingling at the sense of things her wolf self ignores. 

This is Selene’s story: she is the youngest of seven children -

“Uh,” Lisette says, spinning her axe. “Seriously?”

Selene smiles, flicks two fingers, and the axe flies across the room to land in her palm. 

It goes like this: her brothers were all dreamers, and the gift of sorcery in their blood allowed them to take the shapes of birds and fly away. She was left to rule, and she did not mind, enjoying the feeling of the land blooming under her feet, and she grew stronger as the people prospered. One day, a man with orange hair rode up to her castle and asked for her hand in marriage, and when she refused, he brought six beautiful swans, speared through the heart with starwort, and left them at the castle door.

Selene stops here, and smiles a little, regretfully. 

She grew careless with rage, and forgot herself, called the powers down on his head, and he too, bearing the protection of royal blood, laid waste to her people.

One day she woke up and felt only ashes under her feet, and understood.

Selene ran.

-

(“That’s nice, but I don’t care.”)

Well then. This is Lisette’s story – 

“Shut up.”

Hush. Listen.

This is Lisette. She likes to bake and her favourite colour is red. She got an egg for her fifth birthday, and her hen is now the best layer in the village. Her mother helps the washerwoman up at the big castle, and her father chops wood.

In his spare time, he teaches her how to handle knives, how to whittle cunning shapes from wood. He likes to pretend to be a bear and chase her around the yard. They wrestle and she always wins, and her mother always gives her the extra piece of spice bread for winning.

Her best friend is a scared little boy named Wilhelm. Lisette has been known to hit people who make fun of him, so he trails after her like a lost puppy all day long. In time he enters the service of the castle, and Lisette finds herself looking forward to his visits.

There is a prince with orange hair, and he does not suffer himself to share. He switches the sign in the road, takes a stuffed wolf into the woods, pretends to be a demon, and lies through his teeth. 

Shh. Listen to the story.

This is Lisette. Lisette is running through the woods, blood in her hair, blood under her nails, blood flowing from her collarbone to her navel and down to her legs, blood spattering from her feet onto the packed dirt of the forest path, blood gleaming dully on her axe, blood congealing in her eyelashes, mingling with her every breath.

This is Lisette, and she will be eleven this year. 

She is an orphan, a girl child alone in the world, a monster, a bitch, a shadow in the trees, a rumour for parents to whisper to their children, a nightmare in a red hood, an inevitability hurtling towards her destiny.

She runs.

This is Lisette, and she is a killer.

-

Shh. It’s okay.

\- 

Selene has dark brown hair that coils thickly in Lisette’s hands, red lips that sear kisses on her jaw, over her collarbone, down her body. Her mouth trails after the blood Lisette bathed in, tongue licking every inch of skin clean again.

Lisette is a killer, and her queen is a wolf.

\- 

Listen.

-

Lisette tips over the king easily, sends it rolling across the chessboard, intricate ivory shattering on the stone floor. “I’m to open the door for you, am I, dear wolf?”

Selene laughs, her head tipped back, candlelight gilding the line of her throat. “You can’t think prince-killing is _easy_ , my dear, or everyone would be king.”

Lisette picks her gun up by its golden barrel, and goes to make a name for herself.

This is Lisette, baring her teeth in a grin, wolf blood running through her veins, vengeance heavy in her bullets. She is still the nightmare in a red hood, and a kingdom will fall by her hands.

\- 

Stories twist and stories turn, they lie, and ultimately they are cruel. 

\- 

Assassination eventually brings Lisette back to Lui and Wilhelm. She enjoys the work, enjoys the power she holds in her hands, and the gold isn’t too shabby either.

She plays the part she wants, rolls her eyes through Lui’s womanizing, endures being stuffed into a suitcase, saves herself. She maps out Lui’s weaknesses in her mind, and wonders about Amalberga. For all his vaunted coldness and cleverness, the boy trusts so easily to his own immortality. Lisette regrets that her plans will also end Wilhelm, but he chose sides long ago.

Selene’s rumours lead them to an abandoned castle, stories of a princess trapped by a beast of unimaginable proportions, stories of a fortune under the red sandstone floor. Lui follows his own whims into the cellars. He does not turn around when Lisette steps into the echoing stone chamber behind him.

“Did you think I would spare you, because you are royal?” Lisette says. “These things come in their own time, and stories have power. Think on your sins, my prince.”

Lui dies laughing, Idike a whisper in the air. 

Lisette burns his corpse, watches the others run.

\- 

This is Selene, she is queen of a country long destroyed, and its fury runs through her veins. Together they ride, and the land awakens under their feet.

They save Amalberga for last, Wilhelm whimpering behind her. 

The panther dies, a starburst of blood shot onto its chest. Amalberga falls under the wolf, though she manages to open a long line of red down Lisette’s arm. Lisette reloads the gun, cocks it, and allows Wilhelm to run away. It’s good, to have the other kingdoms know what her queen can do.

Selene smiles, casually wipes the blood of her enemy from her mouth. She rises from her crouch over Amalberga’s body, naked from the transformation. 

Lisette walks to her, dangling the crown from her fingers, careless of the flames flickering on the drapes around them.

Selene throws Amalberga’s head out the broken windows, and licks her lips coyly. “Will the people care, do you think, if I take you on the throne?”

And after that, there were not even ashes.

\- 

On clear nights, Lisette runs with her wolf queen, and all is well.

**Author's Note:**

> It always bothered me that Lui just plain got away with tricking Lisette into killing her parents and was still idolized as this hero who cared about people, to which my brain said, nope, and produced this. I checked through the entire manga, and there is nothing to indicate Lisette's parents were actually crazy abusers?? She says they sold her, but that was kind of circumstantial...?
> 
> Anyway, I'm running with this particular backstory, so consider it a teensy AU if you will.


End file.
